Returning to the game... How is druid tanking now?

[valden83]

So I am returning to the game, and my main is going to be my warrior. I want my alt to be my druid, and am curious how tanking is now compared to earlier in Cata. I plan on dual speccing resto with something else.

[Cosima]

What're you planing to do as a tank? Hardcore raid? Just random heroics now and then?


As for the 'random heroics'-part, I can tell you that I personally find druid tanking to be quite enjoyable as it is right now. Our threat is fine, so you generally won't have to walk around being pissed about constantly losing aggro to all the crazy DPSers you meet out there. As far as survivability goes, I really havn't had all that much trouble yet. We have two rather strong cooldowns, plus Barkskin as a backup for whenever it feels needed.

Only thing that really annoys me, is the fact we sometimes end up just standing there without any rage. You won't be out of rage for a long time, but simply standing there for 2-3 seconds while Thrash is off cooldown really makes me feel quite worthless. I generally tend to just pop enrage even though it makes you take a wee bit more damage; You can compensate by using either Barkskin or for example a "use"-effect on one of our trinkets.

[Fudge]

What're you planing to do as a tank? Hardcore raid? Just random heroics now and then?


As for the 'random heroics'-part, I can tell you that I personally find druid tanking to be quite enjoyable as it is right now. Our threat is fine, so you generally won't have to walk around being pissed about constantly losing aggro to all the crazy DPSers you meet out there. As far as survivability goes, I really havn't had all that much trouble yet. We have two rather strong cooldowns, plus Barkskin as a backup for whenever it feels needed.

Only thing that really annoys me, is the fact we sometimes end up just standing there without any rage. You won't be out of rage for a long time, but simply standing there for 2-3 seconds while Thrash is off cooldown really makes me feel quite worthless. I generally tend to just pop enrage even though it makes you take a wee bit more damage; You can compensate by using either Barkskin or for example a "use"-effect on one of our trinkets.

You can just macro to cast enrage and then push again to cancel the enrage buff.

[valden83]

Thanks for the input, defintely more casual, instances and heroics. I may raid eventually but that is definitely not a short term goal.

[Cosima]

You can just macro to cast enrage and then push again to cancel the enrage buff.

I know this, and I do infact have one of those macros, however even after getting the instant 20 rage, I still find myself out of rage once in a while. Personally, I rather be just slightly more sure I'll have enough rage to generate the required threat, rather than taking a wee bit less damage for those 10 seconds. How much mana my healer use generally doesn't matter when I have a gear-swap macro for Innervate.

Obviously against any hard-hitting mob, I would cancel the effect.

---------- Post added 2011-02-25 at 11:59 PM ----------

... when I have a gear-swap macro for Innervate..

Which brings me to something I forgot to add: You might want to get set of resto or balance gear together. Innervate is really terrible in pure melee gear, however simply swapping gearset once you leave combat, casting Innervate on your healer, before going back into tank gear is generally only a 20-25k HP loss, while the Innervate will give far more mana than it otherwise would.

[valden83]

great tip on the enrage deal, never knew that. I will have to check it out, hes only 83 so it probably would be smart to just respec and try it out.